


The Return

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-22
Updated: 2008-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Afterwards, his whole body feels scraped clean and shining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Return

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cate.

Afterwards, his whole body feels scraped clean and shining, and he knows intimately each place where he meets the world around him—the curve of his skull and the flat planes of his shoulder-blades pressed against the cool floor; the currents of air that run over his body and slip through his fingers—and the sunlight that streams in warm through shattered-glass windows is a strange new constant, one that reminds him of things universal, makes his scalp prickle with remembered ecstasy. He stares up at the ceiling and remembers the brush of Oma's mind against his, the brief, endless moment when he was nothing but light, and he's dimly aware that he's smiling, that his face is wet with tears. There are voices around him, made indistinct by the walls that are closing them out of the conference room still, muted by the air currents that take far, far too long to carry sound to listening ears, and oh, all the things he could tell them if they were just able to hear—

—and when the thumping outside reaches a crescendo, the doors slide open, and there's a quick patter of footsteps towards him that stop when they reach his side. Rodney falls to his knees next to him, and reaches out to wrap one broad and callused palm around his wrist; the touch of old skin against new is so raw that it makes him shiver, so good it makes him smile. He hears Rodney whispering, words gone thick and choked with something like fear or gratitude, "Oh god, oh god, you came _back_, John", and John shifts so that he is closer to all that body heat, to the bright spot that marks out Rodney McKay in the wide, cold universe.

"_Rod_ney," he grins, his new-born tongue slow to sound out familiar vowels. He reaches out as Rodney leans in to meet him, his arm shaking in Rodney's grasp, and this his body would always remember: how it felt to inhabit the space defined by the warm press of Rodney's hands against his skin; how joyous to hear the sound of Rodney's breathing, the catch of an inhale still in time with his own.


End file.
